Governments in Bulgaria, China, Denmark, Hungary and Australia’s Northern Territory have all made conditions hostile to Uber. There are partial bans in Finland, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

Specific reasons for the bans differ. In the case of London it is thousands of cases of unauthorised, insured drivers using verified driver accounts to pick up passengers.

Behind safety concerns, though, is also a deep resentment towards Uber itself circumventing regulations. This has led, in 2016 and 2014, to thousands of drivers of London’s traditional black cabs jamming the city in protest[2].

London cab drivers block Whitehall in central London in February 2016 to protest against Uber being allowed to operate.Andy Rain/EPA

Uberisation refers to the use of a computing platform to facilitate transactions between service providers and customers, often bypassing a traditional organisational intermediary. Uber pioneered this in “ride-sharing” and has pushed aggressively into food delivery. Its most controversial bypass is the traditional employment relationship.

This is epitomised by the case of Amita Gupta, the Australian Uber Eats driver fired for being ten minutes late[3] in delivering a food order. Gupta’s claim of unfair dismissal was rejected by Australia’s federal Fair Work Commission on the basis she was an independent contractor, not an employee, and therefore not covered by the protections of Australia’s Fair Work Act. (She is now appealing to the full bench of the Fair Work Commission[4].)

The good news, as the London ban on Uber signals, is that uberisation is not an unstoppable force. For all its attractions to companies keen to hire labour while circumventing costly labour laws, it is destined to clash with the controls required to keep capitalism ticking over.

That’s no cause for complacency, though, because even if uberisation has its limits, we are seeing the apparent normalisation of all forms of precarious and insecure work.

The revolution that never happened

In 2015, with a crush of Uber-inspired startups rushing to market, a Huffington Post article[6] predicted the combination of “realtime data, mobile payments, instant gratification and dynamic pricing” was the beginning of “an on-demand revolution that will ‘Uberize’ the entire economy.”

This hasn’t happened.

In the United States[7] the percentage of workers in precarious employment – including agency temps, contract workers, independent contractors, freelancers and the like – rose from 10.7% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015. Only an estimated 0.5% were involved with online intermediaries like Uber.

A 2018 report[8] for Britain’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy estimated less than 1% of British workers relied on the gig economy for the majority of their income.

The limits of capitalism’s logic

Uber and other labour-based digital platforms reveal the limits of the logic of contemporary capitalism: a logic based on the assumed value of deregulated markets that operate best with minimal interference by the state.

Their business models follow a textbook formula of unfettered capitalism. It eliminates employment obligations in favour of a spartan market-based economic exchange between capital and labour. Paid holidays, pension contributions, minimum wage, sick leave and protection from unfair dismissal – with a click on an app, all these hard-won rights disappear.

Normalising precarious work

While we can be relieved the gig economy hasn’t become more widespread, it is a concern that these platforms’ high profiles and extensive marketing have helped normalise and sanitise business models with parasitical employment practices.

The latest claim that job-seekers are actively snubbing work opportunities flies in the face of research.www.shutterstock.comThe “job snobs” are back on the agenda.With some in the Australian government’s own ranks…

The platform was one of 10 graduates from QUTCEA’s Collider 2018 program
Brandollo, a bespoke marketing and brand amplification platform for startups and small businesses, has today announced its official launch…

News Company Media Core

A NOTE ABOUT RELEVANT ADVERTISING: We collect information about the content (including ads) you use across this site and use it to make both advertising and content more relevant to you on our network and other sites. Find out more in our privacy policy.

The Business World by NEWS Company - www.NewsCompany.com.au - office@newscompany.net - 1300 205 504